Brisbane city has linked its public transport Go Card smartcard with street-side bicycle hire
December 1, 2012
South-east Queensland’s Go Card smartcard becomes more than a public transport tag on tag off ticket, linking the card with bicycle hire.
From December Go Card will link with Brisbane City Council’s CityCycle facility, which means cyclists can pay for cycle hire through their smart card.
Queensland Transport Minister Scott Emerson says working with the Brisbane City Council’s CityCycle initiative makes it easier to transfer between bus, train, ferry and now bicycle.
“It’s the first time Go Card has been linked to a function other than public transport,” Emerson says.
CityCycle account holders can go on-line at www.citycycle.com.au to link their accounts to their Go Card.
Go Cards will still be able to be topped up in the usual way – on line, auto top-up or at a Go Card retailer or ticket machine.
Both accounts currently remain separate and the discounts and incentives that apply to both schemes remain separate.
Council Public and Active Transport Chairman Peter Matic says the ability to move seamlessly between the different types of transport was an exciting step forward for the growing CityCycle scheme.
“CityCycle is growing, is now used by an average of 4,500 people a week and has been used on more than 300,000 trips since its inception two years ago,” Matic says.
“Having the Go Card linked with CityCycle will help encourage people to use public or active transport and reduce congestion on our roads,” he says.
Matic says he was pleased that local and state levels of government, working with Go Card contractor Cubic and CityCycle contractor JCDecaux have been able to make the breakthrough.